


Hearts & Stars

by KareliaSweet



Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gifts, M/M, Spacedogs Appreciation Week, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6048940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KareliaSweet/pseuds/KareliaSweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nigel gets his sprite a Valentine's Day gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearts & Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ina_K](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ina_K/gifts).



The door to the craft shop slams open, rattling on its hinges and sending the chiming bell attached at the top into a pinging frenzy.  
  
The shopkeeper gives a puzzled but friendly smile to the source of the clatter, a tall gentleman with shaggy hair and a vague scowl. Under his breath the man grumbles about how much fucking paint he’s going to have all over him after this is done. He then proceeds to declare to the vicinity (thankfully deserted) what they can do with their fucking yarn and their popsicle sticks and where they can shove them.  
  
Perhaps not a gentleman than.  
  
A little tremulous, he calls out to the man looking angrily between the aisles and muttering more bewildered curses.  
  
“Can I help you sir?”  
  
Nigel turns to him, swears again - although this time at least sounding more relieved than agitated - and slaps down a poorly scrawled list of items on the counter.  
  
“Do you have this fucking shit or not?”  
  
When Nigel sees the clerk quake in his boots, he takes a deep breath in through his nose and exhales as calmly as he can, almost by rote, as though this were a relaxation technique he’d learned secondhand.  
  
“Sorry,” he says, not meaning it.  
  
He looks down at the shopkeeper’s nametag. “Kevin,” he declares pleasantly, “Kevin, my fine friend, for the love of fuck could you help a man out and locate these fucking items for me?”  
  
Kevin quickly scans the list and nods. “Yes,” he chokes out, then with a little more authority, “Yes, sir, we have all of this.”  
  
He circles around from behind the little counter, wheezing out a bit of a cough when Nigel slaps him on the back cheerily.  
  
“Good man Kevin. Good fucking man.”  
  
Brightened a little by the shift in the man’s demeanour, he looks over his shoulder as he grabs a large mason jar from a top shelf.  
  
“Science project with the kids?”  
  
The man’s eyes narrow angrily and Kevin almost drops the jar. Clearly the wrong thing to say.  
  
“No, Kevin, not a fucking _kid_.”  
  
He pulls a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his shirt and sticks one between his teeth.  
  
“It’s for my fucking _Valentine_.” He palms a match and strikes it against the counter, cupping his hand as flame licks at his face.  
  
“Uh, sir, there’s no-”  
  
“Could you believe that, Kevin? Me. I have a fucking Valentine.”  
  
He grins and lights the end of his cigarette, shakes the match out, moving to toss it to the floor before he catches himself and shoves the dead match into his pocket.  
  
“Sorry Kevin,” he mutters on the inhale, “littering’s a terrible fucking habit.”  
  
Then he exhales the smoke directly into Kevin’s face. Kevin blinks and coughs, peers at Nigel through reddened eyes.  
  
“Let’s get the rest of this list, shall we sir?”  
  
He turns his head as Nigel laughs another plume his way.  
  
“Fucking brilliant, Kevin.”  
  
He darts quickly down another aisle, away from the tobacco fumes and tattoos that the man is doing a poor job in covering. He wonders who on earth this man’s Valentine could be, prays for pity on the poor soul.  
  
“And make sure it’s good fucking paint!”  
  
Poor soul, indeed.  
  
-x-  
  
The poor soul in question comes home to a suspiciously silent apartment, free from the sounds of action films blaring in the background. He can’t even make out the scent of Nigel’s cigarettes, and realizes in the same second that he’s become oddly used to it.  
  
Adam slings his messenger bag off his shoulder and sets it on the entryway table.  
  
“Nigel?”  
  
“Welcome home, darling!” a gravelly voice calls from the bedroom.  
  
He follows the source of the sound to find Nigel, sitting on their bed with a boyish grin on his face and… an empty jar in his hands?  
  
He holds it out toward him, pleased as punch.  
  
“Happy Valentine’s Day, sprite.”  
  
The panic of forgetting an until-now rather arbitrary holiday slides right off him as he stares at the jar in utter confusion.  
  
“It’s a-”  
  
“It’s a galaxy!” Nigel says excitedly.  
  
Adam puffs out a little laugh.

“Nigel, this is not a galaxy.”  
  
He examines the jar closer. It’s filled with small yellowish-gray dots, but is otherwise pretty unremarkable. Nigel is clearly buzzed about it, but he can’t quite piece together why. He looks up at him and Nigel just keeps smiling.  
  
“Isn’t it?” he asks.  
  
Nigel shuts the door behind them, tweaks at the bedroom curtain just a little to displace any fragments of light still cutting through.  
  
“Watch,” he instructs, and flips the lightswitch off.  
  
The jar illuminates.  
  
Beneath the glass, the pale little dots become points of glowing light that shine like tiny stars. In the dark it really does look like a small swirling universe. It’s… it’s very beautiful.  
  
“See,” Nigel says earnestly, “I made you a galaxy, darling.”  
  
Adam knows intrinsically that this still isn’t a galaxy, that it’s just a mason jar filled with dabs of glow-in-the-dark paint, and there’s no method to the constellations that spread out along its insides. But he also knows that Nigel worked really hard on this, clearly wanted to please him, because he -  
  
Adam looks up at Nigel as his chain of thoughts form link after impossible link.  
  
Because he loves him.  
  
In the dark, he sees it painted on Nigel’s face.  
  
Literally. Nigel’s face is glowing with flecks of neon freckles. A few spots are heavier around his cheek and over his collar, from when he shook the paintbrush angrily in frustration when he couldn’t get the angle quite right.  
  
Adam knows.  
  
His chest fills and fills at the image of this man, this strange combustible man who exploded into his life without warning in a frenzy of expletives, calmly sitting at a desk and painstakingly creating a galaxy for him.  
  
Nigel loves him.  
  
He can’t breathe.  
  
“Do you like it, darling?”  
  
Adam nods mutely, his face hot and his lungs tight. Tears sting and prick at his eyes and he tries to shake them back, but a few spring free. He makes a little gasping sound as the air tries to claw into his throat.  
  
“Adam, are you alright?”  
  
Nigel is only two feet away but in this moment it feels like miles. Adam could reach out and touch him, but his hands are frozen at his sides. There is so much space between them he physically aches.  
  
“Nigel,” he chokes out, “I need you to hold me _now_.”  
  
Knowing, always instinctively knowing, Nigel has his arms around him in a tight bear hug, surrounding him with pressure and comfort.  
  
Like he always does.  
  
Adam feels the tightness in him snap and deflate like a balloon and he gulps air in great swallows.  
  
“What did I do wrong, sprite?” Nigel begs, “tell me, darling, so I know for next time.”  
  
Adam shakes his head, burying it into the reassuring mass of his chest. The space between them melts until there is nothing but warmth and comfort and _Nigel_.  
  
“Nothing,” Adam replies as the last of the pressure leaves him, “nothing wrong, it’s just…”  
  
He looks up then, at the face shining with concern, an impossible galaxy of its own.  
  
“You _love_ me, Nigel.”  
  
Neither question, nor demand. An observation, awed and true.  
  
Nigel doesn’t bat an eye.  
  
“Well of course I fucking do, darling.”  
  
He presses a kiss to his forehead, pulls his mouth down to his temple, his delicate cheekbone, the very corner of his mouth.  
  
“Made you a galaxy, didn’t I?”  
  
Adam turns his head fully into the question of Nigel’s kiss, answers it with his own, warm and soft.  
  
“Yeah,” he breathes against Nigel’s cheek, his words hot and happy, “you fucking did.”  
  
Nigel’s brows shoot up at the gracious bestowment of a rare expletive from his beloved and he growls.  
  
“God, you know I love it when you fucking swear,” he grins.  
  
Adam nods and bites - _bites_ \- at Nigel’s pulse.  
  
“Mmhmm”, he mumbles, then laughs with gleeful surprise as Nigel grabs him around the waist, hoisting him high. Adam wraps his legs around Nigel’s waist, an automatic reflex at this point, and dives into another kiss.  
  
“I-” he says between breathless attacks at his mouth, but Nigel cuts him off as he tosses him to the bed.  
  
“Fucking love you,” he says, kissing his way up Adam’s body, baring as much skin as he can along the way, “saved my fucking life, sprite.”  
  
“I don’t see how I did that,” Adam replies as he offers himself up eagerly for more affection, hands scrabbling to unbutton Nigel’s shirt.  
  
“Changed everything,” Nigel murmurs, licking the shell of Adam’s ear, tracing a wet line down his throat with little sucks and bites, “my darling,” - _kiss_ -, “my water sprite”, - _kiss_ \- “my sweet Valentine.”  
  
Adam tenses up under him. “ _Valentine!_ Oh no, Nigel, I didn’t - why didn’t you remind me to -”  
  
He shoves weakly at Nigel’s shoulders, but Nigel just chuckles and pins him down, gently grabbing at his wrists and holding them over his head.  
  
“Hush,” he says, raising one hand to stroke teasingly down his side, “you can fret later, sprite. Now I’m going to fuck you - nicely - until you scream, and you can be my flowers and my box of chocolates all at once.”  
  
He kisses him, once, just lightly, lets the worry in his eyes recede and fade away.  
  
“Does that sound good?”  
  
Adam nods, rolls his hips up and bites his lip in that way Nigel likes.  
  
“Very good,” he purrs, curling one leg back around Nigel’s thigh. He looks up at him through heavy lidded eyes, aroused and loved and happier than he thinks he could possibly measure.  
  
He doesn’t say I love you back, not that night, and not because he doesn’t feel it or mean it. He holds it because tonight is Nigel’s to give, for Adam to take and accept and cling close to. And he knows that he hears it on the soft exhale when Nigel’s fingers slip inside him, on the edge of the moan when he rubs that spot that makes bright colors dance under his eyelids.  
  
Adam knows that Nigel hears it when he spreads himself wide on the mattress and begs for Nigel to fuck him (even when this time Nigel corrects him gently and tells him that tonight they’ll be making love thank you very fucking much), and he knows he sees it in Adam’s eyes in the moment they are joined, when Nigel fills every part of him like he’s the puzzle piece he’s been searching wildly for and suddenly found.  
  
And he definitely hears it when Adam comes apart under his hand, crying Nigel’s name, shaking and gasping and near-weeping with relief and joy, limbs wrapped around him sweat-soaked and trembling.  
  
They smile, and kiss, and nuzzle, and Adam says all the words of love he knows without speaking. Nigel listens and strokes his back, one splayed hand twisting lazy curls in his hair.  
  
Together, in love, under the dwindling light of a homemade galaxy.


End file.
